From practice, mobile racks and appliances having brakeable caster wheels are known. Such appliances include containers, pieces of furniture, shopping carts, pallet stackers, baby carriages, children's beds, trolleys, tool carts, etc. In connection with patients and hospitals, e.g., hospital beds, hospital gurneys, infusion stands, wheelchairs, treatment means such as dialysis apparatuses and the like having brakeable caster wheels are known. The casters allow to push or wheel the appliance thereby equipped, e.g., from one room to another room. At the destination, it may be secured against inadvertent rolling by braking the caster wheels. The brakes may be actuated either directly in the range of the caster wheel, for instance by means of a foot-operated lever, or indirectly by means of mechanisms for the transmission of a braking force, for which purpose cables or push rods are customarily employed.
The known mechanisms for the transmission of a braking force such as, e.g., those of U.S. Pat. No. 2,684,734, include a multiplicity of movable parts, whereby complexity of maintenance is increased. As a capability to centrally apply and release the braking force for all caster wheels simultaneously and with a same intensity is furthermore desirable, an adjustment of the braking force is altogether rather complex.
It is the object of the present invention to propose another device for braking or locking at least two caster wheels of a mobile appliance. In addition it is intended to specify a mobile rack equipped with such a device, as well as a medical apparatus having a like rack.